1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a computer system. Specifically, the invention relates to an improved system and method for interfacing components in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many modern electronic devices such as cell phones, PDAs, portable music players, appliances, and so on typically incorporate an embedded computer system. An embedded computer system typically contains a computer processor (referred to as a host), non-volatile memory (such as a NAND flash memory and/or ROM memory), and volatile memory such as a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). The host may include a central processing unit (CPU), digital signal processor (DSP), microcontroller unit (MCU) or direct memory access (DMA) data transmission device.
In some cases, a non-volatile memory controller (e.g., a NAND flash controller) may be provided for use in accessing the non-volatile memory. By providing a non-volatile memory controller, non-volatile memory control and management tasks may be offloaded from the host to the non-volatile memory controller, thereby simplifying design of the host and allowing the host to handle other processing needs of the embedded system.
Where a host, non-volatile memory controller, non-volatile memory, and volatile memory are provided in an embedded computer system, each component may have one or more interfaces for connecting to other components in the system. To decrease the cost of designing and implementing such an embedded system, and to decrease the power consumption of such an embedded system, there may be a desire to reduce the pin count of the interfaces while maintaining a high level of performance.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved system and method for interfacing a host, a non-volatile memory controller, and a volatile memory in an embedded computer system.